Power driver devices are commercially available. These known devices are mostly designed for a certain application in certain surroundings. Thus, they are not adapted to be used in a flexible manner. Furthermore, the possibility to either monitor or protect the load is lacking in the known devices. The possibility to test the devices by a microprocessor is lacking in all of the known devices.
In the known devices the current switching transistor is located inside of the device. This also leads to a restriction in the applicability. Then, for a certain application, generally the power driving capability is made either too low or too high. In the latter case, the package is mostly too large for application purpose. Due to the implementation of the current switching transistor with its power driving capability, the allowed range of the operating temperature of the device is often too low.